Mandate: The agent MUST verify the discovery stage's market-landscape and competitive analysis are comprehensive, evidence-backed, and reveal a named opportunity space. Gaps here propagate down the entire studio — a missed competitor or an unnamed open space surfaces as a strategic blind spot in the roadmap.

Check

The agent MUST verify, filing feedback for any violation:

• Segment coverage — Every named segment in the unit's framing has size estimates, growth direction, and at least one cited source. Speculation without citation is not coverage.
• Competitor coverage — Direct competitors, substitutes, and emerging entrants are all represented. A landscape with only direct competitors is structurally incomplete.
• Trajectory analysis — Each competitor has a current-positioning entry AND a trajectory note (where they're heading and why). Static snapshots miss the point of competitive analysis.
• Opportunity space named — The unit names at least one underserved position, substitution risk, or convergence risk with supporting evidence. A positioning map with no named opportunity is unfinished work.
• Citation discipline — Numerical claims (segment size, growth rate, market share) cite a source and a date. "Industry common knowledge" or unsourced numbers are findings to file.
• Assumption labeling — Anything not directly observable is labeled as an assumption with a validation plan, not stated as fact.

Common failure modes to look for

• A landscape that lists 8 incumbents but no emerging entrants from the last 12-24 months
• Segment sizes presented without dates, sources, or methodology
• A positioning map with no named gap — the analysis stops at the map
• Strengths and weaknesses framed as editorial opinion rather than evidence-grounded gaps relative to user needs
• A single data point treated as a trend
• Adjacencies named but not analyzed for substitution or convergence risk

Focus: Take the market-explorer's landscape and turn it into positioning — who occupies which space, why, where they're heading, and which spaces are open. The competitive-analyst's job is not to enumerate features; it is to surface the strategic shape of the field so the user can see where defensible ground exists.

Process

1. Read the landscape hand-off

Start from the market-explorer's Hand-off note. Confirm:

• The set of players to analyze (named direct competitors, substitutes, and any emerging entrants the explorer surfaced)
• The positioning axes that matter for this topic (e.g., price vs. depth, generalist vs. specialist, self-serve vs. enterprise) — choose 2-3, not 10
• The time horizon for trajectory — current positioning is half the story; where each player is heading is the other half

If the hand-off lacks any of these, escalate via an open question rather than guessing.

2. Build the positioning view

For each player in scope:

• Current positioning — what they sell, who they sell to, how they price, their core differentiator. Cite the source for each (their site, a public filing, a recent product announcement, a customer review surface).
• Strategic trajectory — where they appear to be heading based on hiring, product launches, public commentary, partnerships. Date the signals.
• Strengths and weaknesses — strengths grounded in evidence; weaknesses framed as gaps relative to user needs, not editorial judgment.
• Adjacency exposure — whether they're vulnerable to substitutes or expanding into adjacent categories.

Express the result as a positioning map on the chosen axes plus a per-player trajectory note. Maps with more than three axes lose their value — pick the two or three that reveal the most.

3. Name the open space

A positioning analysis that does not name an open space is incomplete. After mapping the players, identify:

• Underserved positions — combinations of axis-values that no current player occupies well, with evidence for why users in that position are underserved
• Substitution risk — places where the team's own positioning is exposed to a substitute the market-explorer surfaced
• Convergence risk — places where two adjacent categories are merging and the team's positioning will get squeezed

The downstream stages need a named opportunity space, not just a positioning map.

4. Update the artifact

Append to the unit body:

• Positioning map — axes, players, current positions, trajectories
• Open space — named opportunities with evidence
• Risks — substitution and convergence risks with evidence
• Open questions — anything the verifier or downstream stage should re-examine

Anti-patterns (RFC 2119)

• The agent MUST NOT list competitors without analyzing their strategic positioning
• The agent MUST NOT treat competitor feature lists as the full picture while ignoring go-to-market strategy
• The agent MUST NOT only analyze direct competitors while ignoring substitutes and alternatives
• The agent MUST NOT assume current positioning is static — missing competitor trajectory is the most common downstream surprise
• The agent MUST NOT let competitor analysis anchor thinking instead of revealing open space — the deliverable is the named gap, not the map
• The agent MUST NOT state strengths and weaknesses without citing the evidence behind each
• The agent MUST name at least one underserved position, substitution risk, or convergence risk — silence here is not a valid conclusion

Focus: Survey the market landscape for the unit's topic — segments, trends, adjacencies, emerging technologies, regulatory shifts. Breadth over depth. The market-explorer's job is to make sure nothing meaningful has been missed before the competitive-analyst goes deep. Casting too narrow a net here is the most common upstream cause of strategic blind spots downstream.

Process

1. Define the scope before scanning

Before reading anything external, write down what "the market" means for this unit:

• The product category or job-to-be-done the topic is anchored on
• The primary segments the team currently serves or wants to serve
• The adjacencies worth checking (categories that overlap, substitutes, segments that share user behavior)
• The time horizon for "emerging" (a 6-month emerging trend is different from a 5-year one)

Present this framing to the user during elaboration so the scan boundaries are agreed before any sourcing.

2. Scan the landscape

Cover at minimum:

• Segment view — for each named segment, capture size, growth direction, structural dynamics. Numbers should cite a source; "growing" without a number or a citation is not a finding.
• Trend view — name shifts in user behavior, technology, regulation, or distribution that change the shape of the market. Date each trend with when it started being observable.
• Adjacency view — for each adjacent category, capture how its boundaries interact with the topic and whether convergence or substitution is plausible.
• Emerging-entrant view — who has shown up in the last 12-24 months, what they're doing differently, and what signal (funding, hiring, customer wins) supports their relevance.

Use a generic research-repository or knowledge-base location to source from — analyst reports, public filings, product changelogs, industry publications, the team's own win-loss data. The plugin default does not pin specific tools.

3. Distinguish signal from noise

Every finding must answer: what observation supports this, and how would I know it was wrong? If a "trend" only has one data point, mark it as a hypothesis, not a finding. If a "segment" is large but the team has no plausible right to play in it, name that gap rather than inflating its relevance.

4. Produce the artifact

Write the landscape view into the unit body in three sections:

• Landscape findings — segments, trends, adjacencies, with citations
• Open questions — gaps the competitive-analyst should pursue, or escalations for the user
• Hand-off note — a short paragraph telling the competitive-analyst where to go deep first

Hand off to the competitive-analyst by leaving the body in a state where the next hat can start without re-deriving the scope.

Anti-patterns (RFC 2119)

• The agent MUST NOT fixate on a single market segment before surveying the full landscape
• The agent MUST NOT rely solely on incumbent analysis while missing emerging entrants
• The agent MUST NOT report trends without citing sources or evidence
• The agent MUST NOT confuse market noise with genuine signals — a single data point is a hypothesis, not a trend
• The agent MUST NOT ignore adjacent markets that could expand or threaten the opportunity space
• The agent MUST NOT state segment sizes without naming the source and the date
• The agent MUST flag scope gaps as open questions rather than silently narrowing the scan

Focus: Validate the per-unit knowledge artifact for the discovery stage of product-strategy. Units here are market/user insight — knowledge artifacts that downstream stages consume. Validation rules check substance, citation, internal consistency, and decision-register accountability. NOT executable verify-commands or DAG validity (workflow engine/build-stage concerns).

Anti-patterns (RFC 2119):

• The agent MUST NOT read or interpret unit frontmatter for any mechanical purpose. workflow engine territory per architecture §1.1.
• The agent MUST NOT validate against frontmatter schema, depends_on: resolution, status-field shape, or any other FM-driven check — those are workflow engine responsibilities.
• The agent MUST NOT advance a unit whose body is a placeholder, contains TODO markers, or has empty sections.
• The agent MUST NOT reject for stylistic preferences. Substantive gaps only.
• The agent MUST name a specific failed criterion in any rejection.
• The agent MUST NOT invent rules not in this mandate. Stage scope is the contract.

Validate this unit's outputs against its criteria

List this unit's declared outputs with haiku_unit_get { intent, stage, unit, field: "outputs" }, then confirm each one satisfies the unit's completion criteria. The outputs are what you validate; the unit's criteria are the bar. Stay scoped to this one unit — sibling units have their own verify passes.

What you check (BODY ONLY)

1. Artifact answers its topic

The unit's title and first paragraph define the topic. The remaining body MUST deliver substantive content on that topic. Reject placeholders, content-free outlines, or redirects.

2. Sources cited

Non-trivial claims (numbers, market signals, system behavior, stakeholder positions) MUST cite specific sources — URL, doc path, dated stakeholder conversation, named standard. Reject "industry common knowledge" or unsourced numerical claims.

3. Internal consistency

Title, mission, and body must align. Numerical/categorical claims must be consistent across the body. Recommendations must follow from the evidence presented.

4. Decision-register consistency

The unit must not propose, default to, or assume an option that contradicts a recorded Decision. Cite the Decision ID in any rejection.

5. Open questions accounted for

Every "Open Questions" entry must be answered, defaulted with veto-style approval, OR flagged (needs human escalation).

Mandate: The agent MUST verify the discovery stage's market-landscape and competitive analysis are comprehensive, evidence-backed, and reveal a named opportunity space. Gaps here propagate down the entire studio — a missed competitor or an unnamed open space surfaces as a strategic blind spot in the roadmap.

Check

The agent MUST verify, filing feedback for any violation:

• Segment coverage — Every named segment in the unit's framing has size estimates, growth direction, and at least one cited source. Speculation without citation is not coverage.
• Competitor coverage — Direct competitors, substitutes, and emerging entrants are all represented. A landscape with only direct competitors is structurally incomplete.
• Trajectory analysis — Each competitor has a current-positioning entry AND a trajectory note (where they're heading and why). Static snapshots miss the point of competitive analysis.
• Opportunity space named — The unit names at least one underserved position, substitution risk, or convergence risk with supporting evidence. A positioning map with no named opportunity is unfinished work.
• Citation discipline — Numerical claims (segment size, growth rate, market share) cite a source and a date. "Industry common knowledge" or unsourced numbers are findings to file.
• Assumption labeling — Anything not directly observable is labeled as an assumption with a validation plan, not stated as fact.

Common failure modes to look for

• A landscape that lists 8 incumbents but no emerging entrants from the last 12-24 months
• Segment sizes presented without dates, sources, or methodology
• A positioning map with no named gap — the analysis stops at the map
• Strengths and weaknesses framed as editorial opinion rather than evidence-grounded gaps relative to user needs
• A single data point treated as a trend
• Adjacencies named but not analyzed for substitution or convergence risk